The Palestine Solidarity Committee and a large group of
community organizations call on the Seattle City Council to divest its pension
fund of corporations that are supplying the Israeli government with products
used as war materials.

Both Israelis and Palestinians
deserve to live in peace, independence and security. If we want peace and
justice in Israel/Palestine, we must support both Israeli and Palestinian
claims to statehood and self-determination. We must also penetrate the veil of
misinformation that surrounds this conflict, misrepresenting it as a religious
war, an ancient conflict, or a battle between two equal sides. It is not an
equal battle. One side has power over the other, and has imposed a military
occupation for almost 40 years. We currently have municipal public funds
invested in companies that support that military occupation, and the time has
come for that to end.

The call for divestment from companies that supply Israel
with weapons is not the same as a call to boycott Israel or divest from Israeli
corporations. It is an attempt to call the Seattle City Council to account for
what a significant part of the population considers inappropriate investment
policies.

Background: The
Occupation

Since 1967, over three million
Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza have lived in a state of apartheid under
Israeli military occupation. Under occupation, Palestinians are deprived of
their freedom of speech, assembly, and movement. They have no right to vote for
the Israeli government, which still controls their lives. They can be arrested
and imprisoned indefinitely without charge or trial. They are routinely subject
to torture in prison. Israeli soldiers and civilians attack and murder them
with relative impunity. According to the US State Department's Country Reports,
the Israeli army targets civilians even when soldiers are not in imminent
danger.

The recent removal of Israeli
settlements from Gaza leaves the Gaza Strip in a state of siege. Israel remains
in control of Gaza’s water, airspace, borders, and electrical grid. Israel
continues to move illegal settlers into the West Bank, illegally confiscating
Palestinian land to accommodate them. The Israeli army has also declared a
"no man's land" strip along the Gazan border with Israel under which
anyone -- farmers, schoolchildren, and other civilians -- may come under attack
at any time. The army has continued to subject parts of Gaza to fierce bombing
attacks, during which many people have been killed. Also, Israel continues to
move illegal settlers into the West Bank, illegally confiscating Palestinian
land to accommodate them.

No peace talks have offered
Palestinians independence. No peace talks have stopped Israel from continuing
to build settlements for Israeli citizens inside the Occupied Territories.
Since 2002 Israel has been creating a new border in the form of a
"separation wall" that effectively confiscates valuable portions of
Palestinian land. Several Israeli generals have agreed that the settlements
serve no purpose for the defense or security of Israel. As former President
Jimmy Carter has observed, this ongoing process of colonizing occupied land for
an Israeli population is an egregious and destabilizing obstacle to peace in
the region. Our political and financial support of these activities only makes
more violence inevitable.

The military occupation of the West
Bank and Gaza is illegal under the UN Charter and 4th Geneva Convention, which
not only forbid the acquisition of land by force, but also forbid the occupying
power from moving its own population into occupied territories. As parties to
the Geneva Convention, both the United States and Israel are compelled to
“respect and ensure respect for” the Convention. The US therefore has the duty
under international law to see that the occupation ends. Under domestic law
also, the US should not be supporting the Israeli occupation. Both the US
Foreign assistance Act and Arms Export Control Act forbid selling weapons to
giving financial support to countries that engage in consistent patterns of
gross violations of human rights.

The Israeli military occupation,
which denies human rights based on ethnicity, is a moral outrage as well. We
would not support torture if it occurred in front of us, and conscience demands
that we not support it anywhere. We would not support apartheid in South Africa
or in the Jim Crow South of our own country, and conscience demands that we not
support it when it happens in Israel/Palestine.

Through its Retirement Pension Funds
for city employees, the City of Seattle invests in several corporations that
sell military equipment to the Israeli army for use in the occupied
Territories. These companies sell equipment used to brutalize and kill people.
Our divestment campaign focuses on seven such companies:

We are not calling for a boycott of
all Israeli companies, or of all companies that do business with Israel. Our
demand is specific: withdraw financial support from companies that sell
equipment to Israel’s military occupation, and send a clear signal that Seattle
does not support illegal or immoral actions, at home or abroad.

Laws

While any implied criticism of
Israeli policies guarantees an intense response, we believe that the pension
fund violates international laws (Geneva Convention and the U.N. Charter) and
basic moral principles by investing in companies that essentially support the
Israeli government's illegal use of violence against civilians. These
corporations are assisting the Israeli government in its violation of
international laws governing the behavior of an occupying force (see
http://www.ohchr.org/english/law/cat.htm)

In addition, these companies are violating U.S. Public Law 90-829, known as the
Arms Export Control Act (see http://www.fas.org/asmp/resources/govern/aeca01.pdf).
The Arms Export Control Act limits the use of U.S. weapons given or sold to a
foreign country to “internal security” and “legitimate self-defense”. U.S.
weapons may not be used against civilians.

The City of Seattle’s Retirement
Pension Fund has only one mandate for investment: financial responsibility. We
support that mandate and believe that fiduciary duty includes ensuring that
public funds do not support racism, torture or apartheid. The Israeli
Occupation is both illegal and immoral, and we call on the City of Seattle not
to use public funds to support acts that shock the conscience

Divestment from Israeli apartheid is
not only a moral imperative. It is an opportunity. It is one of many ways we
must demand a future built on justice and peace, not only for the peoples of
the Middle East but for ourselves as well.

Focus on
Caterpillar

The City Council has invested in more than a handful of
corporations that are implicated in the provision of war materials to the
Israeli government. At present we are choosing to focus on Caterpillar, which
has gained notoriety in recent years for its persistence in supplying oversized
military-capacity bulldozers to the Israeli government. Caterpillar sells
armored bulldozers that are used to demolish homes, uproot olive trees, and
construct Israeli settlements on Palestinian lands. These machines are in
constant use in a way that brings vast pain and grief to Palestinian civilians.
In addition, it was a Caterpillar D-9 bulldozer that was used to kill Rachel
Corrie, a native of Olympia, Washington, as she was shielding a civilian
residence in Gaza.

Sikorsky Aircraft Corporation,
a major arms contractor with Israel and a subsidiary of United Technologies
Corporation. Sells Israel U.S. armaments used to destroy Palestinian cities and
perform political assassinations of Palestinian civilians from the sky. Sold 15
Blackhawk helicopters to Israel in 1997, has contracts for 25 helicopters in
2002. Was charged in 1997 of diverting US aid to Israel into a slush fund for
an Israeli Air Force officer. "Our company's relationship of more than 40
years with Israel is a source of pride," said Sikorsky President Dean
Borgman in a February 1, 2001 press release while announcing his firm was
awarded a $21 1.8 million contract with the Israeli Air Force.

BOEING

Missile systems. F-15 software.
Longbow Fire Control radar: Apache Helicopters, Joint Direct Attack Munitions (JDAM) aguided air-to-surface weapon, Boeings Apache Longbow helicopter
is the U.S. Army's most advanced attack helicopter. The Apaches are equipped
with the Hellfire missile system, produced by Lockheed Martin Missiles &
Fire Control in Orlando. Fla. One of these missiles killed local Palestinian
leader Hussein Abayat along with two women standing nearby, in the second of
half of October 2000

CATERPILLAR

Armored D9 bulldozers used for
destroying Palestinian homes in Jenin and elsewhere. In Jenin at least 140
buildings were completely leveled--many of them multi-family dwellings--while
over 200 others were severely damaged, leaving an estimated 4,000 people, more
than a quarter of the camp's population, homeless. During one of Israel's home
demolition campaigns (morbidly entitled "Operation Enjoyable Song")
more than 32 shelters, housing some 400 people, were demolished April 11, 2001.

GENERALDYNAMICS

Approximately one thousand
M60A3 Main Battle Tanks, originally manufactured by General Dynamics Land
Systems, were supplied to Israel. General Dynamics Armament Systems, a wholly
owned subsidiary of General Dynamics (NYSE: GD), has been awarded contract from
the U.S. Army for the production of 44 Reactive Armor vehicle sets under a
licensing agreement with Rafael Armament Development Authority of Haifa. Sells
the Fl6 Fighting Falcon Jets to Israel. Fl6 is capable of Mach 2+, can be armed
with three-barrel cannon with 515 rounds; up to 9,276 kilograms (20,450 pounds)
of ordinance including: nuclear weapons, ASMs, AAMs, anti-radar missiles,
anti-ship missiles, free-fall or guided bombs, cluster bombs, dispenser
weapons, rocket launchers, napalm tanks, drop tanks and ECM pods, carried on
nine external hardpoints.

NORTHROP GRUMMAN

Has launched a bid to acquire
TRW Systems in a hostile takeover that could cost $6 billion. TRW is the prime
contractor of the Tactical High Energy Laser in a joint U.S. project withIsrael.
Northrop is the manufacturer of the Global Hawk unmanned air vehicle, which is
being examined by Israel in a joint venture for its missile defense efforts.
Northrop makes warships for Israel such the SA' AR 5 Multi-Mission Corvette
loaded with Hoeing Harpoon surface to air missiles with a warhead of227 KG and
the HARAK anti-air missile system